dual primary dns server

[Joseph S D Yao]

> I have two different DNS servers, both running on Win NT.  They are both
> primary DNS servers.  The problem is when I do a "nslookup" or a "ping"
> from another NT server, the server only looks at the first DNS server.
> If it cannot find it in the first DNS server then it does not bother to
> look at the second one and returns an error message that it could not
> find it.
> Is there any way to solve this problem, so that if the name is not in
> the first primay DNS server then the server should go and request from
> the second primary DNS server.
> The two DNS servers are on two different networks.

The servers are behaving exactly correctly, as they should be expected
to work.

When you declare a server as authoritative, it is saying it has ALL of
the information for a domain.  It is THE server, the ONE source, the
ONLY place you have to go for information about this domain.  Unless it
happens to be down; in which case, you may look for another authorita-
tive server for that domain, which should ALSO have ALL of the
information about that domain - in other words, an exact copy of what
is on the other authoritative name server.

If this were not the case, to resolve ANY name, the resolver
subroutines would have to query ALL servers that might possibly have
any information with any bearing on the domain.  Until V8 forbade the
"glue" records in unrelated zones [they were forbidden in 4.something,
but you could compile that out], that meant every single name server in
the entire world.

So - what is it that you are really trying to do?  Since you are trying
to lie to one or another set of systems, I would guess that you have a
hidden set of systems whose DNS you don't want to advertise to the
world; and an outer set, some of which you don't want known to the
inner set.  If this is the case, then make the hidden set a subdomain.
If this is not the case, there must be another way to do what you want.

--
Joe Yao				jsdy at cospo.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
COSPO/OSIS Computer Support					EMT-B
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